1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a card printing apparatus for printing various pieces of information including the name of a person, the name of a company, etc., on a magnetic card, thus producing an identification (ID) card.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There has heretofore been proposed a card printing apparatus having a thermal transfer head for printing a color image on a card based on color image information optically read from a color photograph or color image information electrically produced by a video camera, as disclosed in Japanese laid-open patent publication No. 62-11370.
In the conventional card printing apparatus, an ink ribbon is heated and pressed against the card by the thermal transfer head, and the card is translated by a stage to thermally transfer a printing color material from the ink ribbon to the card. Such a printing process is repeated to thermally transfer a plurality of desired printing color materials such as of cyan, magenta, yellow, and blacks from the ink ribbon based on the color image information. The desired printing color materials are thus successively superimposed on the card, thereby printing a color image on the card.
Generally, the card on which such a color image is printed comprises a magnetic card. Specifically, the magnetic card is printed with an image such as a photograph of the face of a person, including letters, numerals, and symbols representing the name of the person and other information. On the magnetic card, there is magnetically recorded ID information including the name, the birth date, and the password number of the person, in the form of a magnetic stripe by a magnetic encoder.
The magnetic card with such a magnetic stripe in which the information is magnetically recorded is usually referred to as an ID card.
The ID card is required to have a complete match between the information recorded in the magnetic stripe and the image printed on the card.
Two control processes have heretofore been employed to ensure such a complete match between the recorded information and the printed image. One control process is a manual control process for manually verifying the match between the image that is printed by a card printing apparatus and the information that is recorded by a magnetic encoder which is separate from the card printing apparatus. The other control process is an automatic control process in which the match is automatically verified by a card printing apparatus and a magnetic encoder that are connected to each other in an online network.
The manual control process is however problematic in that the manual verification is subject to errors and requires a relatively long period of time to carry out. The on-line system for effecting the automatic verification is relatively large and expensive.